Use of "Task Killer" app on Droid X?

Just got a new Droid X
and I'm new to the forum. Do I need to download the task killer application to manage performance/memory. I have a 32 gig card installed but are applications installed and ran from the resident memory.

There will be plenty of people who say to use a task killer and they get much more battery life by doing so...not true. Use your phone and dont worry about the background apps they close themselves when the phone needs more room

I also agree, There's no need for a task killer and the task killer will use more battery then it saves.

Most of the programs I see people trying to kill are items the OS will just reload 5 mins later. It's far better to leave it running then constantly reload it. Then you look on an app like System Panel and it shows half the stuff you're killing is just "cached" and using 0 cpu time anyway. They cache it so if you want to go back to using the app it doesn't have to be reloaded. When the OS decides you need more ram for some other app it just de-caches the oldest cached app and frees it instantly.

Note that your 32gb card is like hard drive space on your computer. This is different from RAM. A task killer would clear RAM. Nevertheless, as has been noted, killing tasks is not needed as android already has a built in automated task killer. Just have fun and don't worry about task killers or antivirus.

Do keep an eye on:

- what privileges you are granting to apps when you download/install them. I don't install apps that ask for more info/privileges than I think is necessary

- apps that run on startup needlessly. I'm picky about this. I don't need my music player or notepad, as examples, to run on boot. Widgets also can use up a lot of CPU, RAM, battery.